Writers Guild of America members and supporters picket in front of Warner Bros. Studio on the first day of the writers strike on May 2, 2023 in Burbank, California.
(
Brian Feinzimer
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for LAist
)
Topline:
Thousands of striking Hollywood actors and writers are risking their health insurance as the labor dispute continues.
Why it matters: For those who qualify for health insurance under the WGA or SAG-AFTRA, the benefits are enviable. That said, members of both unions said it took them years to make enough money to qualify for the union health insurance — while other union members who have worked in the industry for years never have.
What's next: Existing and upcoming state laws may provide help.
Read on... for more details on current health insurance plans in Hollywood and about a mutual aid group to help crew members affected by the strike pay for their health insurance here.
The dual strike by unions representing actors and writers has brought Hollywood to a standstill. It’s the biggest strike in more than six decades as the Writers Guild and actors union SAG-AFTRA together represent more than 170,000 workers who are now on the picket lines instead of at work.
UPDATE
SAG-AFTRA, the actors’ union, sent members a letter on Aug. 30 saying health insurance would be extended until the end of Decemberfor certain members who would otherwise have lost their eligibility on Oct. 1. Members who made at least $22,000 from July 1, 2022 to June 30, 2023 will continue to get insurance through the end of the year.
Even as union members advocate for better wages, residuals and regulations on the use of artificial intelligence, they know another key benefit is at risk in the short-term: health insurance.
Affordable, generous and increasingly hard to qualify for
The union health insurance is predicated on the notion that members work consistently and lucratively enough to make a minimum amount of money, which makes it difficult to first attain and then sustain.
Often referred to in hushed, reverent tones as the “Cadillac of health insurance” by those who have it, the policy offered by the Writers Guild feels like a holdover from a bygone age.
No monthly premiums.
$600 per year to cover the rest of your immediate family.
Deductibles that are in the hundreds — not thousands — of dollars.
The bar for entry is high. Writers must earn a little over $41,700 in covered union work a year to qualify for coverage and residuals don’t count. The income requirement continues to rise, which coupled with the increasingly uncertain reliability of employment means even experienced writers can have a hard time qualifying.
Writers can accumulate credits by qualifying for WGA health insurance for 10 years and by earning more than $100,000 in covered work. Top earners can rack up three points per year, which can then be cashed in when writers experience a dry spell and can’t make the minimum income requirement, but coverage ends the quarter after the credits are used up.
For example, a writer who qualifies for health insurance for 10 years but earns less than $100,000 can cash in all their points and continue their insurance for up to a year and a half if they are only insuring themselves.
But insuring dependents cost more credits, meaning people with families have less of a stop-gap to fall back on.
As the strike stretches on into another quarter, many union writers are furtively calculating how many credits they have and how long this temporary measure will buy them, if they have credits at all.
Health insurance benefits for actors
In contrast, residual payments do count toward the $26,000 per year that striking SAG-AFTRA members must earn to qualify for health insurance offered by the union — another reason increasing residual payments, especially from streamers like Netflix, are a high priority for members who are on the margins.
Plan premiums from SAG-AFTRA are $125 per month for union members. For a family of four or more, the monthly cost rises to $249 per month or $2,988 per year. That’s less than half of the $6,680 that the average California worker with employer-sponsored health insurance paid for family coverage in 2022, according to a report by the California Health Care Foundation.
How are the dual Hollywood strikes affecting you?
Issues with access to these benefits
Members of both unions said it took them years to make enough money to qualify for the union health insurance, while other union members who have worked in the industry for years never have. Both SAG-AFTRA and WGA were approached for interviews about their health insurance offerings. SAG-AFTRA declined to be interviewed and WGA sent LAist a link to their FAQ page.
“Make no mistake — if the studios truly cared about the economic fallout of their preemptive work slowdown against below-the-line crewmembers, they could continue to pay crewmembers and fully fund their healthcare at any moment, as they did in 2020 during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic” Loeb wrote.
Half of the trustees of the Motion Picture Industry Pension & Health Plan are represented by companies involved in the strike. The WGA’s strike FAQ tells members “there is no Health Fund requirement that the Health Plan extend health insurance coverage during a strike, and Trustees are 50% management and 50% Guild.”
“The moments that I've been at risk of or have lost health insurance in the past pre-strike were not moments when I wasn't working,” said Susanna Fogel, a filmmaker who is a member of both the WGA and DGA unions. “I was working, but there were particulars to the work that just made it fall short or fall in the wrong month to stay covered. So it was just always a stress,” she said.
Should the unions simply drop the income requirement to a lower amount so more members could qualify? Alex Winter, a longtime member of three industry unions, doesn't think so.
“It seems draconian to turn back to the unions and say, well, since we have these oligarchs who are hoovering up all the profits let's try to take what few squirrel nuts we have and scatter them out amongst whoever survived staying in the industry as opposed to fighting to get equitable pay, which is what we're doing,” Winter said.
A new California law could help strikers on the margins
All California workers who lose their employer-sponsored health insurance may be eligible for the state’s Medicaid program, known as Medi-Cal, or qualify to buy health insurance through Covered California, where they may receive subsidies that bring down the monthly cost of insurance. But those premiums will likely be far higher than SAG-AFTRA or WGA plans, at a time when striking workers are making much less money.
But writers and actors who lose their union health insurance as a result of the strike could benefit from a new California law that took effect July 1, 2023 aimed at averting just that situation.
AB2530 received $2 million in funding under the new state budget. To qualify, a union worker must first lose coverage as a result of the strike. According to Covered California spokesperson Craig Tomiyoshi, eligible workers will have their premiums covered as if their incomes were just above the Medicaid eligibility level.
Here’s an example. A single striking worker in their mid-30s who lives in West Hollywood loses their union health insurance during the strike due to the work stoppage. This person goes to Covered California’s exchange to find health insurance. They make $50,000 and are offered a middle-tier “benchmark” plan that would cost them about $320 a month in premiums. Under the new law for striking workers, that person selecting the same plan would pay nothing in premiums – as if that person made $20,385 a year — for the duration of the strike.
Not all striking workers will enroll in a free plan. Striking workers will be able to pick plans that are more expensive than the benchmark plan. If they do, they will pay the difference in premiums.
“At this point, we are not aware that WGA or SAG-AFTRA members have lost health coverage, but if any Californian has lost coverage, we encourage them to contact Covered California as soon as possible,” Tomiyoshi wrote in an email response. He added that people anticipating losing their union health insurance should also get in touch.
Beginning Jan. 1, 2024, another law kicks in. Covered California will end deductibles on the middle-tier benchmark plans, meaning a striking worker could receive free premiums under one law and no deductibles beginning in the New Year, if the labor dispute lasts that long.
Californians are required to have health insurance for at least nine months of the year, or they risk paying a hefty penalty during tax season.
Crews left out
The new law doesn’t cover crew members who are not part of the striking unions but have lost health insurance due to the work stoppage.
A new mutual aid group was created to fill that gap.
The Union Solidarity Coalition known by the acronym TUSC has raised more than $200,000 to give assistance to IATSE and Teamsters members, said founding member Alex Winter.
“I don't know anyone, honestly, in a lot of the primary crew areas who [aren't] in danger of losing their health insurance, and I know a lot of people who have lost their health insurance,” Winter said.
The idea for the non-profit began with conversations between crews and filmmakers, said Fogel, who is a fellow founding TUSC member.
“Because their coverage is based on the hours that they get within a certain window of time, some of the [crew members] mentioned they or people they knew were at risk for not making their hours due to productions shutting down, or if they opted not to cross a picket line, that could cost them their health insurance,” she said.
TUSC has partnered with the Motion Picture and Television Fund and its Entertainment Health Insurance Solutions, which acts as an insurance navigator for people in the industry.
According to TUSC’s website, “MPTF and EHIS will talk directly to members in need, and get them signed up for the health plan that best suits their needs. The TUSC fund will then pay the premiums.”
Fogel says it’s about making sure that everyone in the industry has access to high-quality health care no matter the current industry conditions.
“Every so often when there's one group of people that are going on strike and it's our turn to strike right now, we just wanted to kind of let the other unions know that we consider ourselves to be part of a collective and we hope that they feel that love from us,” Fogel said.
